Piece By Piece
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Coda to "Shattered". Icheb and Naomi return to their own timeline with a heavy secret, but are they the only ones who remember? C/7, I/N.


Piece By Piece

By Laura Schiller

Based on: _Star Trek: Voyager_

Copyright: CBS

/

"_Piece by piece, he collected me_

_Up off the ground where you abandoned things …_

_[…] Piece by piece, he restores my faith _

_That a man can be kind and a father could stay."_

Kelly Clarkson, "Piece By Piece"

/

In the eighteen years since he'd been freed from the Collective, Commander Icheb had rarely had cause to feel grateful for the Borg conditioning that made it difficult for him to express emotion. He was grateful today, though, since that conditioning was all that kept him dry-eyed and professional right now.

Commander Chakotay. Alive. In Astrometrics. Impossibly young-looking and with no idea of what the future held in store. The fifteen-year-old boy in Icheb wanted nothing more than to run up to him, catch him by the shoulders, and beg him not to accept the mission that would end in both his and Captain Janeway's deaths.

_Focus,_ Icheb told himself sternly. _Remember the Temporal Prime Directive. This is not the same Chakotay. This is a fellow officer giving you updates during a state of emergency. Your memories are irrelevant. Concentrate!_

He glanced at Lieutenant Wildman, who stood beside him at attention, looking very professional except for her shining eyes. Her thoughts were probably similar to his.

"We've injected the gel packs on every deck with chronoton particles except Engineering," said Chakotay, "But Engineering's been taken over by hostile aliens. We'll try to negotiate with them, but if that fails, we need a backup plan. For that, I need your help."

"What can we do, sir?" Naomi asked eagerly.

Chakotay held out two hyposprays. "If I inoculate you, you'll be able to wait on the upper level and be ready to step in if things go wrong. The Captain went to hand out more of these to any crewmember who'll take them. We'll meet her at Engineering."

"Understood," said Icheb.

Chakotay handed over the hyposprays, and Icheb and Naomi pressed them to their necks. Icheb didn't feel any different – then again, what were chronoton particles supposed to feel like? – but when Chakotay headed for the doors and gestured brusquely for them to follow, the urgency of the situation sank in.

As senior officers, Commander Icheb and Lieutenant Wildman had survived more than one battle. But if they couldn't win this one, the shattered pieces of _Voyager_ might never get back together.

Seven. Sabrina. He might never see them again.

Behind Chakotay's back, Icheb held out his hand to his wife. She gave it a brief, reassuring squeeze before letting go.

"What can you tell us about these aliens – sir?" Icheb asked, remembering at the last second not to call this version of Chakotay by name.

If he was walking into a fight, he should learn as much about his opponent as possible. Chakotay himself had taught him that.

"How much do you know about a former crewman called Seska?" Chakotay's tone was grim as he stooped to open the weapons locker beside the turbolift. "Or a species called the Kazon?"

Icheb struggled to hold up his head against another wave of confusion. Of course this Chakotay didn't remember. This man had never sat with Icheb late into the night after his first heartbreak, sharing stories over Antarean cider and reminding him not to let one bad relationship ruin his hopes for the future.

"Enough to know that she's a traitor," he said, "And I'll do everything in my power to get them off this ship."

That came out more personal than it should for someone who had never met the woman, but Chakotay's sharp nod showed his approval. He took three phase pistols out of the locker, kept one, and handed the others to Icheb and Naomi.

Then he opened the hatch to reveal a Jefferies tube. "It's the safest way," he said, scrunching his large frame into the small space with visible reluctance. "C'mon."

Halfway up the ladder, they saw a strange force field shimmering in place that had to be the temporal barrier. This was it. If they could get past this, it would mean the chronoton serum worked and they had a chance to make _Voyager_ whole again. If not …

"Sir?" Icheb called upward. Before they went into danger, there was one more question he had to ask.

"What is it?" asked the older man.

"If we return _Voyager_ to temporal alignment, may I tell Seven about … all this?"

Icheb had never lost his Borg aversion to keeping secrets. He could do it if he had to, but he dreaded looking into his foster-mother's eyes and pretending he hadn't just seen her husband alive. Didn't she deserve to know the truth?

"I'm sorry, Commander," said Chakotay somberly, "But the Temporal Prime Directive still applies. You can't tell anyone."

"Of course." Icheb bowed his head, flushing with embarrassment like the teenager he had been. "You're right. It's probably better for her not to know."

After all, the last thing Icheb wanted was to exacerbate her grief. Learning that the man she loved had been close but out of reach would certainly do that.

Chakotay turned to climb through the temporal barrier, looked back at Icheb, and frowned. "Hang on … why Seven? I mean, why would this concern her more than the others?"

Icheb's blush deepened. Would he never outgrow his absurd habit of saying the most tactless possible thing?

"Because she's his mom?" said Naomi, with an ironic questioning note in her voice, as if the answer were obvious. Icheb gave her a grateful look.

"Right," said Chakotay. "Never mind. Let's move."

He squared his shoulders, climbed upward, and the hint of disappointment Icheb might have sensed was gone so fast, he decided it must have been all in his imagination.

Icheb didn't want to move. He wanted to spin out this time as long as possible, before he had to lose the closest thing he had to a father all over again.

_I remember, _he wanted to say, _how careful you were about pinning on my insignia at my graduation. How I tried to shake hands with you at your wedding to Seven and you hugged me instead. How you took me on my first away mission and, when the Fen Domar brought down our shuttle, carried me out of the wreck. I remember the expression on Seven's face when she told me you were gone. _

_Don't leave us._

_Not again._

But if there was anything all his mentors had taught him, it was to take his responsibilities seriously. If they didn't get past Seska and the Kazon now, the same memories that were threatening his composure now might never be created in the first place.

He had to protect them – at any cost.

/

Later (if that was the correct term), with _Voyager_ returned to the boundaries of normal space-time, after explaining the strange events of the day to a bewildered Captain Paris as best they could, Icheb and Naomi returned to a familiar suite.

Seven lived alone in the same quarters she had once shared with her husband, but not always alone – as evidenced by the happy squeal that followed the door chime.

"Mommy, Daddy!" Sabrina Wildman ran up to them as the doors opened, grinning from ear to ear. "Guess what? I finished the puzzle!"

With her father's dark hair, her mother's blue eyes, the slightest hint of a Brunali nose ridge and three dainty Ktarian spikes on her forehead, she was the most beautiful life form Icheb had ever seen. He always thought so, but today, with this life they shared so close to being erased, he was more sharply aware of it than ever.

"Well done." He bent down to give her a hug before letting Naomi do the same.

"Not without assistance," said Seven wryly, rising to her feet with a creak of metallic joints. "Though she is intelligent for her age, as was to be expected."

She was only forty-four, but losing her best friend and the man she loved on the same day, as well as living with the constant strain of her Borg implants, had aged Seven prematurely. Her hair was ash-gray, her face deeply lined, and she wrapped herself in loose, many-layered clothing because she was often cold. But the intelligence behind her blue eyes was as sharp as ever, and she greeted the young couple with a warm, spontaneous smile.

"Watch your step," she said, pointing to the floor.

A jigsaw puzzle depicting a strand of human DNA lay on the floor of the living room, every piece in place.

"My apologies," said Icheb, backtracking with an exaggerated care that made Sabrina giggle.

If not for the Borg regeneration alcove in one corner, it could have been any family's living room in its eclectic comfort. A Flotter doll sat on the sofa next to a hand-woven blanket made by the Ventu people. A dreamcatcher hung on the wall opposite a star chart. The smell of milk and cookies filled the air, and holoimages stood wherever there was room: weddings, graduations, Prixin parties, Sabrina at every age … Icheb made a concentrated effort not to stare his own graduation holo, which featured Seven and Chakotay on either side of him in his crisp new crewman's uniform, all three of them standing tall and solemn-faced. What might look like severity to an outsider, Icheb recognized as pride – the sort of pride that only came from love.

"Thanks for watching her." Naomi scooped Sabrina up and gave Seven a kiss on the cheek.

"I do not require thanks," was Seven's customary answer.

Icheb picked up the Flotter doll (knowing from hard-won experience that his stubborn daughter never went to sleep without it) and tucked it under his arm. "Say good night."

"Night, Granny Seven!" Sabrina waved regally from her high perch in Naomi's arms.

"Yet again, I repeat that I am too young for that title!" Seven shot the little girl a mock glare that deceived nobody.

"But Daddy's your son, isn't he, just like Mommy is Granny Sam's daughter?"

"Not exactly – but I cannot fault your reasoning," said Seven, her eyes meeting Icheb's over the Wildmans' heads. The two former Borg drones had never been demonstrative with each other, but Icheb understood this coded affection as clearly as Sabrina understood hugs.

If Chakotay were here, he would have understood too.

_I saw him today, _Icheb wanted to tell her, so much that his throat was sore from holding back the words.

"I thought about Chakotay today," he said instead. "I wish he were here to see this."

He nodded at Naomi and Sabrina, who were moving ahead of him on their way out the door, the child's head resting in the crook of her mother's shoulder.

"So do I," said Seven, with a hushed voice and sorrowful eyes.

For a moment, Icheb feared that it had been a mistake to bring up this subject. But when those eyes of hers suddenly narrowed and focused on him like a pair of bright blue tractor beams, he stopped worrying.

"What is the stardate?" she asked.

He told her, and she tilted her head the same way she did when performing calculations in Astrometrics.

"Did you or Lieutenant Wildman pick up any anomalous readings?"

"None that we are at liberty to discuss. The Temporal Prime Directive applies."

She gave a small nod of satisfaction, as if that was exactly what she had expected him to say.

"You look exactly the same today as you did the first time I saw you," she said. "I did not recognize you aboard the cube, but I do now."

"You remember." Icheb felt almost light-headed with relief.

Of course she remembered. The chronoton serum had made sure of that, even if the event itself had been rewritten. Besides, her Borg enhancements gave her total recall. Even if she'd barely noticed the random Brunali and half-Ktarian officers in her peripheral vision that day, she would still have remembered them.

"I do wish," she said, with a very cold smile, "It could have been a more recent version of me who pushed Seska into a console. It would have been far more satisfying."

"Agreed," said Icheb, smiling coldly back.

"He would be proud of you." Her expression softened. "As I am."

They might not be demonstrative as a rule, but every rule needed its exceptions. Icheb placed both hands on his foster-mother's shoulders, stood up on his toes and kissed her on the forehead.

He hadn't spared a thought for his biological parents for years, but tonight he remembered them with something almost like pity. They had no idea of what they had missed by treating him as a weapon instead of a child. It had been up to strangers to teach him what family meant, but he would not have it any other way.

If he could teach his daughter even a fraction of everything his true family had taught him, he trusted that she would thrive.


End file.
